Courtney Ward has been “dancing with dolphins” for ten years in the warm waters of southern Mozambique at Ponta Malongane. People say she is part dolphin and you can believe it when you see her gliding through the water like a mermaid with her mono-fin.

Dolphins crowd around her and out of a pod of over two hundredshe knows about thirty individuals on sight. They may arrive together or in small groups and Courtney and the dolphins give each other the eye (or was that a wink?), acknowledging an understanding that she says is, “a very physical and joyful relationship.” She says they love to play and so does she.  Courtney also talks about the real soul connection she has with the dolphins, which she finds funny, since she originates from about as far from the sea in South Africa as you can get; Kimberley. She calls herself the, “dolfyn van die woestyn,” dolphin from the desert. She has such inter-connectedness with the dolphins, that they even visit her in her dreams.

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Death of Tshukudu Game Lodge Founder and Son

I am very sorry to announce that the founder of Tshukudu Game Lodge in Limpopo, Ala Sussens and her son Ian Sussens were killed in a car accident on 6 April 2010. Ala was a safari doyenne, one who cared deeply for animals and was known to take in any injured animal and nurse them back to life. This is why on any visit to Tshukudu you are likely to find tame animals like leopard, cheetah, elephant and any number of other creatures that you can actually touch.

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The moment I got my copy of Lannice’s new foodie book, ‘ Tortoises & Tumbleweeds – A Journey Through an African Kitchen’  I flicked through it for ideas of what to cook that night.

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Guests at Buffalo Ridge Safari Lodge had a surprise visit from an opportunistic elephant, who simply couldn’t resist the cool, crystal clear, swimming pool water on a hot spring day in Madikwe Game Reserve. 

Photographed by 18 year old Tom Rudolphie of The Netherlands.

 Buffalo Ridge is a community owned safari lodge in the beautiful Madikwe Game Reserve of northern South Africa, near the Botswana border. I love this area.

For more reviews of lodges inside Madikwe on this blog see:

http://www.safaritart.com/?p=618

http://www.safaritart.com/?p=248

Do you speak Russian? If so, perhaps you can tell me what the comment below says. It’s nice to know this site has readers from all over the world, even if I can’t always understand what they say!

………aka Fawlty Towers.

You may wonder where does a spoilt Safari Tart go for her Christmas holidays?  I needed a place to veg out, do absolutely nothing, get up late, read a lot and turn up for breakfast at 10.30am.  I also wanted to feel like I belonged and be entertained a little. Sounds good doesn’t it? I found just the place - a real life Fawlty Towers complete with Basil and other crazy characters in the countryside near Cape Town.

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I have been going on safari in Africa every year for 15 years, yet it was at Samara Private Game Reserve, in the middle of nowhere in the Graaff-Reinet Karoo, that I found two elements of a safari that had so far eluded me; a yoga mat and an aardvark.

A strange duo I agree, but a pairing that makes Samara a special safari venue in the absence of Africa’s really big game….. I regretted that line as soon as I wrote it, because it shows what a spoilt safari tart I have become!

You don’t find anything taller than giraffe, any stronger than rhino, any faster than cheetah, or any meaner than buffalo and Samara has them all, as well as antelopes and of course aardvark (which I will speak more of later).  

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I do like a generous size bath and the big oval bath in the lagoon-side safari suite at Mosiac Farm, could fit little ole me and my 6ft man. The only problem was that that neither I nor Man, could reach both the spout and the taps at the same time. We had to run the bath in tandem, him on the taps, me on the spout (not elegant). But once in, it was all worth it.

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Brothers Safaris offers African safaris with a difference. Dr Peter Brothers is an African wildlife Vet and Registered Tourist Guide, who allows you the rare opportunity to enter his world.  

His next safari immobilizes lions to monitor and treat them in the Amakhala Game Reserve, near Port Elizabeth. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime hands-on experience with lions that very few people are privileged to encounter. He involves you in the procedures carried out while the lion is immobilized, like blood sampling or collaring. Or you can simply observe and monitor a wild lion while this giant pussy cat is fast asleep (hoping all the while that he doesn’t wake up)!

Amakhala Game Reserve have rhino (white + black), elephant, cheetah, buffalo, lion, giraffe, black wildebeest, zebra, tortoise and over 16 antelope species and this veterinary safari allows time for traditional game drives and learning more about African wildlife.

 Dr William Fowlds - a wildlife veterinarian and the co-host of this veterinary safari - owns and runs Leeuwenbosch with this family, on the Amakhala Game Reserve. Accommodatin consists of the Country House & Shearers Lodge, one of which is your accommodation while on this 4-day African veterinary safari.

When: 7 – 10 December 2009 

Where: Amakhala Game Reserve – approximately 40 minutes from Port Elizabeth Airport

Amakhala Game Reserve began in 1999 as a joint conservation venture and today has six independently owned lodges. All are owner managed by the descendants of the original families who arrived here with the British settlers of 1820.

Brothers run other veterinary safaris working with all sorts of African animals like elephant, cheetah, antelopes, etc, take a look at their website to find out more on www.brotherssafaris.com  or email; info@brotherssafaris.com

You don’t have to do yoga to go on a Southern Africa Yoga Safari, but it helps.

In a hidden location amongst giant sandstone rocks on the West Coast of South Africa near Eland’s Bay, Southern African Yoga Safaris makes use of a rocky retreat for a getaway with a difference. While doing your ‘Salute to the Sun’ or Tree Posture (seen here), you stare out and may meet the eyes of some of the antelopes or zebra that live in this nature reserve.  Or if you are very yogic, you may be looking inwards and finding the peace within.

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These extraordinary leopard pictures were captured by photography student Casey Gutteridge at the Santago Rare Leopard Project in Hertfordshire. Copyright of http://solentnews.biz/. 

Seemingly unaware of the beast, the mouse diced with death when it tucked into the leopard’s lunch. The mischievous rodent grabbed at scraps of meat thrown into the African Leopard’s enclosure.  

 

 

Gutteridge said that even the keeper who’d thrown the meat into the enclosure had never seen anything like it before.  The project owner Jackie James added: ‘It was so funny to see - Sheena batted the mouse a couple of times to try to get it away from her food, but the determined little thing took no notice and just carried on.’ Sheena was brought in to the Santago Rare Leopard Project from a UK zoo when she was just four months old. She is one of 14 big cats in the private collection started by Jackie’s late husband Peter in 1989.